A player who has played 268 matches should be on the ground plaing, not on the bench.

I have been watching all the Sri Lankan matches so far and itís clear that Tharanga is not comfortable against big teams at all. His strike rate is very slow compare to other openers in the world. Being a slow opener, put lot of pressure on his team-mates.

Why not play Maven Atapattu as an opener with Jayasuriya instead of Tharanga. Atapattu has the experience and he is a better player than Tharanga. In the field, they are not much deferent from each other (Both slow in the field and donít ball).

May be selectors should give Atapattu a go against Ireland and prepare him for the semis. We will have a better chance of wining the world cup with the following line up.

Tharanga averages 13 against Australia, 18.11 against India, 26.66 against Pakistan, 13 against South Africa and 9.75 against West Indies.

He's a player of promise, beyond question, but to date he's been very much a weak-attack and substandard-side bully.

As for Atapattu not being a ODI player - he's done pretty well to play 245 ODIs, then... :blink:

17-04-2007, 06:30 PM

StumpMic

Wow so many of you don't know about Atapattu's odi status. He's one of the most successful odi openers ever produced by SL. Him and Jayasuriya were great at the top of the order. I think they have a 50+ average together.

Maybe the selectors should give him a shot in the match against IReland if only to bring some pressure on Tharanga to perform However I think he just hasn't had enough time in the middle to open for SL in the major matches. Tharanga is also a faster scorer than Atapattu and, as a younger player, he has a longer future ahead of him.

17-04-2007, 09:25 PM

deeps

bring attapattu in against Ireland, if he can get going, it should be enough practice..ie. if he's in the middle and makes 30+

if he gets out cheaply then he wouldn't have had enough practice and back to tharanga.